


There Is No Daylight Between You and I

by alovelylight



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Forgiveness, Gina Linetti saves the day (again), Healthy Relationships, Kevin Cozner loves rom-coms and you can't convince me otherwise, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 04:09:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13651143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alovelylight/pseuds/alovelylight
Summary: He was too old for this, for this world-bearing sea of anxiety that crushed the very stones of his stability: this life that he and Kevin built together, throughout the years of redefining what love meant to each of them, of finding peace in hard work, of seeing renewal in each worthwhile sacrifice. He knew how selfish it all sounded.(Raymond and Kevin had a fight before the latter left for Paris. What they do about it will determine the strength of their love.)





	There Is No Daylight Between You and I

On the bedside table of their room was their only honeymoon photo, Kevin with his arm around Raymond’s waist, both of them wearing what they termed “sufficiently photogenic smiles,” straddling the line between toothy grins and polite professionalism. It was one of their favorite photos—from what little they had anyway; they needed no tangible evidence to remember the other—but in the collective shadows of where it stood now, Raymond wondered why it was worth looking at.

Really, it was not a pretty picture. It did not even capture the romantic spirit of their time together—debating over the competing philosophies of _The Magic Mountain_ , reading Dostoevsky side by side in silence—yet they could never find it in themselves to take it down. A petty part of Raymond considered doing so to spite his husband, but as he was in Paris, he might as well take what he could of Kevin.

Even in the aftermath of the fight, there was a restless emotional tug of war in Raymond’s brain, torn between forgetting their argument until they next see each other or to pick up his phone and call Kevin. It had startled him, truly, that his husband had been so cutting with his words, and to _him_ nonetheless. But then again, Raymond hadn’t restrained his tongue either.

It was as his mother had said: two people with quiet undercurrents of fire would always hurt each other. It was a fact, as easy and yet as hard to grasp as the fact that he will always love his husband, even when he was a warring spitfire—tongue filled with weapons and fists barely holding back his defenses.

They knew each other enough to know the coded breathing of each other’s hearts, but that fight—an escalating, irrational acceleration: one moment they were laughing over Kevin’s sister’s engagement to a New Zealand pop singer she met on holiday, then they were discussing long-distance relationships, and then they were biting nails about time zones and Cheddar’s dental care and the litany of books that belonged to both of them and which ones Kevin could take to the Sorbonne.

It was all too much. He was too old for this, for this world-bearing sea of anxiety that crushed the very stones of his stability: this life that he and Kevin built together, throughout the years of redefining what love meant to each of them, of finding peace in hard work, of seeing renewal in each worthwhile sacrifice. He knew how selfish it all sounded.

Raymond barely registered when the doorbell rang. As it was eleven p.m., he wondered who on earth had enough audacity to come to someone else’s house at such a time (so the answer fell to either Peralta or Gina). But when he opened the door, a disapproval already on his tongue, it was his husband’s face that glowed in the light of their porch.

“Um,” he said, cursing his eloquence. “What are you doing here?”

“I flew here,” Kevin said, as if it were obvious.

“I gathered. But _why?"_

“Raymond, it is rather chilling out here. Please do let me in.” His name uttered in Kevin’s voice woke him up, and he held Kevin by the arm as he led him through the threshold.

“Forgive the impromptu timing,” Kevin continued. Raymond could see the rain droplets clinging onto his hair. “It is so unlike me.”

“It is.” He softened his voice, “but I am glad you’re here.”

“Truly?” Kevin looked him in the eye, his brows furrowed, “I have been unforgivably awful to you, before I left for Paris. The things I’ve said...it was crueler than anything I’ve done in our marriage, and it was all because of my fear to—as the platitude says—spread my wings.”

“I acted awful too,” he clutched his husband’s hands, alarmed at the iciness on Kevin’s skin, “it seems that we both have our own fears, but we both wanted to be too strong for the other. The truth is,” he squeezed his eyes, “I am not strong enough for the both of us. I was looking at our honeymoon picture and, do excuse this piece of sentimentality, I didn’t want to take it down. Even in pictures, I need to feel you with me.”

“Which is the main reason I flew back here,” he squeezed Raymond’s hands. “We need to have an actual conversation about how we’re going to handle each other’s absence, ideally written in a comprehensive set of rules we can regularly reference back to.”

“God, you would just adore Santiago.”

“The one who broke into our bedroom to search through our private belongings?”

“Yes. That’s the one.”

“Anyway. I was thinking of all the things I wanted to say, and I wrote down a list somewhere—let me check my briefcase...”

“That can wait,” Raymond kissed him like a drowning man, hand coming to rest on his husband’s lower back. “You said that was the _main_ reason you came.”

“I love it when you analyze the layers of my dialogue,” Kevin whispered, stroking his cheek. “Yes, I suppose I was—ah, influenced—by the romantic flights of fancy from those romantic comedies Gina introduced me to. She says they’re the best love stories since Katy Perry’s music videos.”

“Who?”

“I’ve no clue.”

“Well, I’ve got to thank Gina then.”

Raymond smirked as Kevin gasped when he picked him up, feeling his legs lock around his waist. As he made his way upstairs to their room, the shadows of their house seemed to have departed. He had found sight of his harbor again.


End file.
